'Inexplicable' item to be unveiled at Barnum Museum

Phyllis A.S. Boros

Published 4:54 pm, Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Melissa Houston, registrar for the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Conn. with the four by seven by 9 foot crate that the museum will unveil the contents of on April 1 at 3 pm. The unveiling event will be open to the public.
Photo: Brian A. Pounds

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The public demands to know: What's in the giant crate that recently arrived at Bridgeport's Barnum Museum? A major scientific discovery? Something that will elicit ohhs and ahhs from the crowds that mass for the public unveiling on April 1? Could it alter history?

Perhaps, but visitors might do well to keep in mind that Tuesday is All Fools' Day, a day on which good-natured practical jokes are played here and in many European cultures.

And P.T. Barnum, a prominent 19th-century entrepreneur and brilliant marketing master, knew a good joke -- then called a "humbug" -- when he saw one, said Barnum Museum Director Kathleen Maher.

Remember "Feegee Mermaid," for one. That turned out to be the torso and head of a mummified young monkey that was sewn to the tail of a fish, and then all was covered in papier-mâche. So what if it wasn't a "real" mermaid? The public loved it, and came in droves to see her in Barnum's traveling shows.

So the public can at least be certain that the box is not empty, Maher pointed out.

Maher refuses to be specific, other than to say that the object is "an inexplicable specimen ... a strange anthropomorphic figure."

"I don't really know how to classify it," she said. "I will admit that it would have fit perfectly in Barnum's original Museum of Curiosities in New York City back in the 1840s."

This is what we do know:

The specimen was most recently at the University of Wisconsin, which acquired it in 1984 from professor William Willars, a zoologist who had connections to the university's archeological society, according to the museum.

"He took responsibility for researching both its origins and what exactly it was. Thirty years later, Willars, now retired, admits that he wasn't successful in either endeavor and felt that the Barnum Museum -- with its close relationship to both Nick Bellantoni, a professor at the University of Connecticut and the state archeologist, and professor Jerry Conlogue of the Bio-Anthropology Research Institute at Quinnipiac University -- might be better suited to continue the investigation," Maher said.

"When it arrived here in an enormous wooden box that we opened, well, it frankly astounded me," Maher said. "This peculiar skeletal assemblage of bones looks nothing like any living being that is known to modern man."

The entire mystery has been turned over to Conlogue.

"We are studying it under laboratory conditions," Conlogue said in a written statement to the Connecticut Post. "There's no telling right now how old it is or whether it was actually a living thing.

"In nearly 45 years of imaging research, this has been not only one of the most unique objects I have encountered, but also provided one of the most technically challenging experiences. To my knowledge, the resulting single image of the entire object will be the largest ever acquired by the method developed by myself and the faculty and students of the Diagnostic Imaging Program at Quinnipiac University," according to Conlogue.

His report is expected sometime next month.

Tuesday's unveiling also will feature local dignitaries, fans of P.T. Barnum and curiosity-seekers, Maher said, adding that Barnum would, indeed, be proud.

Festivities will take place in the People's United Bank Gallery, which is adjacent to the landmark building. (The historic museum building remains closed while it raises funds for renovation and restoration following damage caused by a tornado in 2010.)